Aelthiriel POV
I had kept watch for three to four hours, until he woke and relieved me, and still we didn't share even a word.
Wizards were rumored to have fetishes, so I had no idea if not speaking was a fetish or if he was just outright obnoxious and a total ass.
I slept through to the next morning, and by then, I could walk better. Though pain still screamed through me, flaming wild in my bones.
Every movement sent a jolt of agony to my head, but considering how it had been the previous day, it was considerably manageable.
At least I could walk myself without his help and having to deal with his hushed mumblings of regrets.
We set out early from the cave now. Raelion led the way, tapping his staff against roots and stone, his stride confident, perhaps more arrogant if I was being honest.
It irritated me more than it should have. He walked like a man who expected the world to bend around him—even while blind.
He had a big body, shoulders hunched high, muscles tensed beneath his robe, which now looked a little tattered and, if I might add, dirty.
Well, I couldn't claim the hygiene morality. I was worse. I stared down at myself, at the blood that had caked around where I'd been stabbed by Queen Briana's assassins.
My clothes didn't just smell bad. The dark, metallic, and almost coppery stench of dried blood also clung to them. After being chased for weeks by the assassins, I couldn't remember when last I washed.
My long platinum-white hair tangled over my shoulders in dirty locks. I looked horrible. Even my face hosted ghostly patches of dirt.
I had never really thought of how I looked for months, but now, realizing that Realion had seen me like this, dirty, haggard, unwashed, and unkempt, my stomach coiled into knots.
Oh, Mother Goddess! I cried from mortification in my head. I clutched my face, a squeal almost tearing off my throat.
I had been following a step behind him. Now I dropped back some feet, as if that would make me cleaner.
But then, it struck me. Why should I ever bother about how he sees me or what he thought of me? I do not owe him or anyone to look better.
Certainly not him.
I increased my pace a bit until I was back to being just a step behind. I followed, jaw tight, eyes sharp, my feet dragging off the stone and dirt.
I struggled to keep up despite the agony shooting like a pellet to my brain.
The forest looked different in daylight. Less menacing, perhaps—but no less deceptive. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in fractured beams, illuminating patches of moss, fallen branches, and the faint signs of old paths long reclaimed by nature.
After nearly an hour, I began to realize something was… off.
He'd veered east when the land sloped west. Missed a clear game trail and circled a cluster of standing stones twice.
I slowed, still following along, because after all, he was the one with the map. Then, we circled the cluster of stones again, and it finally dawned on me: We were lost, walking around in a circle. I stopped entirely.
"Give me the map, Realion," I said. I couldn't explain why his name sounded funny in my mouth, but it did.
He didn't turn. "No." The word was instant and final.
I blinked, stunned more by the certainty than the refusal. "You're blind," I said, unable to keep the edge from my voice. "I'm not. Let me see it."
It took every bit of control not to yell at him with the obvious fact that we were lost.
He shrugged his big shoulders proudly. "I know where we're going."
"You think you do," I snapped. "But you don't. You have led us in circles for an hour now."
He halted then, staff digging into the earth. Slowly, he turned his head in my direction, though his eyes—now strapped with a blindfold to keep out the sunlight—didn't quite focus on me.
"I don't trust you," he said calmly.
"Why?" I demanded. "Because I'm an elf? Or because your pride can't stand being wrong?"
His blatant stubbornness and pride were beginning to get on my nerves.
His jaw tightened. "Because I've survived this long by trusting no one. I can't make an exception for you."
"Congratulations. You're blind and stubborn and stupid. A lethal combination." I snorted, not holding back all my thoughts about him.
He might be kind in his own way, but that didn't clear him of his stupidity.
His hand twitched toward the satchel at his side—where the map was—but then stilled.
"I am not stupid, elf—"
"Aelthiriel," I interrupted him. "That's my name."
He grunted, his jaw clenching, teeth rattling, and his shoulders huffing from rage. "I have no business with whatever name you choose to answer to."
"You should begin to. We are partners in this journey."
"No, we aren't." He growled. He took a stride forward, and not further. "Last I checked, you were the one leaching off my support. I didn't ask for your help."
"But you needed it." I shot back. My voice came out in a burst that echoed my rage. "Without me, you would have died when the Amalek's attacked." I shot back.
"And I wouldn't be in that position in the first place if I didn't stop to help you. I don't owe you that help."
I didn't know someone could be so disagreeable and proud until I met him. I pressed my fingers on my temple, trying to ease my rage before it exploded. When I lifted my head again, I made my voice as calm and controlled as I could manage.
"Why don't you just give me the map, Raelion?" I said, "You can't read it. I can."
"I can interpret it," he said. "Sight isn't the only way to read."
I stared at him, disbelief burning hot behind my eyes. I have heard wizards were stubborn creatures, but he was a whole planet of his own.
"That map is written in layered sigils and terrain marks. Some of it only makes sense visually."
"I will manage," he replied coolly, turning away again, "just like I have always done."
Every instinct in me screamed to rip the satchel from his shoulder and prove him wrong. But my side still throbbed. My strength was not fully returned. And as much as I hated to admit it, I couldn't win a fight against him.
I had no choice. I just followed quietly, seething as we resumed our walk to doom.
The forest grew denser the farther we went. The trees thickened, their trunks wider, bark scarred and dark. The air changed too—heavier, carrying a faint, sour musk that made my nose wrinkle.
I slowed again when the stench hit me with the force of a punch.
"Raelion," I said quietly. "Do you smell that?"
"Yes."
"And you're still walking?"
"It's just rot," he replied. "Old earth."
"It's not." I could pick out the smell now. And it sure wasn't old earth.
"Realion." I called, lowering my voice as the pressure in the air thickened. Yet, he didn't stop.
The ground dipped suddenly, opening into a shallow ravine littered with broken bones—some animal, some very much not. Crude markings were carved into the stones nearby.
My blood went cold.
"Stop," I hissed. "We shouldn't be here."
But it was too late.
Heavy footsteps shook the ground as massive shapes emerged from between the trunks. They were hulking, gray-skinned brutes with crooked tusks, clubbed hands, and eyes sharp with cruel amusement—Ogres.
At least four of them. Raelion finally stopped moving, his massive hunk frozen to a spot. His staff hung in place.
The silence stretched between us, thick, heavy, suffocating the air. I could almost taste it, as I felt the electrified tension in the air, the massive, brute creatures, huffing before us.
"Well," I muttered under my breath, fury and dread twisting together in my chest, making me unnaturally loud. "So much for managing."